For getting a better overview of the overall performance of machines and crew leaders the following four new reports have been implemented:

Overall Machine Performance

Overall Machine Performance by Crew Leader

This report is almost identical to the Overall Machine Performance report but it additionally shows figures for the crew leaders.

Overall Crew Leader Performance

The Overall Crew Leader Performance report shows performance indicators by crew leader for the selected period compared with average values since the beginning of the year. The report contrasts the crew leader’s monthly performance values with the average of the year. Graphical indicators show if the crew leader performance has improved or changed for the worse.

For better usability some small modifications have been made to the PC-Topp.NET reports.

Easier Access to Personalized Reports

Besides the standard PC-Topp reports, the PC-Topp.NET Statistics page now shows all your personalized reports, too. At the bottom of the toolbox you will find a new section “Personalized” containing your customized reports.

Send Reports by E-Mail

If you need a PC-Topp.NET report outside of PC-Topp or on a different computer you can now easily e-mail it to your own address right from the page that generates the report (instead of downloading it to the workstation’s hard drive).

On the Reports page, below the usual links for print-out or output as an Excel file, additionally a link saying “Send to (user name)” can now be displayed which sends the selected report to the address provided in your PC-Topp.NET user profile.

If you want to use this feature please contact us so we can configure it for you.

The Quality Check Shift Report which used to be available only in the Statistics section of PC‑Topp.NET is now accessible at the Machine Terminal, too. It is displayed in a new sub-tab of the Shift Report tab.

Thus the machine operator can now view information on the results of all quality checks during the current shift right at the machine.

The PC‑Topp reporting module has been enhanced by a new functionality for group-wide reporting. The system now allows larger enterprises owning several plants, sometimes located in different countries, to analyze all their sites’ performance at a glance with PC-Topp’s group-wide reporting tool.

You can easily compare production key figures of all sites in an enterprise by e.g. grouping them by country and site, or you can create reports comparing the performance of either all conversion machines or similar machines across the group.

The only technical requirements for using group-wide reports are that the same version of PC‑Topp.NET and SQL Server must be installed at all sites as well as stable HTTP or TCP connections to allow access to all PC‑Topp service PCs within the group.

The scope of group-wide reports available under the Group-Wide Reporting license will be extended in the future. Customized reports can be created on demand; please contact us if you want a personalized group-wide report.

Currently available Group-Wide Reports

The PC-Topp statistics page now contains a new report called “Corrugator Production by Board Grade and Roll Size” in the section Corrugator > Production Statistics. This report gives you an overview of the corrugator production of the selected period by flute type, board grade and roll size. The production totals per board grade are broken down by roll size.

There is a new link in the PC-Topp.NET Conversion Machine Scheduling page toolbox that lets you print out several job cards at once in PDF format. You just need to select the orders you want to print out (via the checkbox) and then click “Print Job Card”. This feature is very useful for planners because they can print out the job cards for the program of the day in just one step.

The new Quality Check Shift Report shows all quality checks done during the selected shift(s). For each order all quality checks are listed with execution time(s), results and the responsible crew member. If a quality check has expired or failed it is color highlighted.

Additionally, the Quality Check Shift Report contains a shift summary with the attendance times of the crew members, the number of quality checks per crew member, and an overview of this shift’s passed, failed, and expired quality checks.

There are two ways to create this report:

• Order Data Transfer Information by Category During Default Period of Time
  On the Order Transfer page you can click the PDF icon in the header of each category (new, updated, deleted errors) to create a report with the order transfers in just this category during the period of time displayed on the page (14 days by default; longer periods can be set on request). 
  
• Free Choice of Category and Period of Time of Order Data Transfer Information
  
  Clicking the “Order Data Transfer History” link in the bottom of the Order Transfer page will open a new page that offers further options for customizing the report. You can select
  
  
  • Whether you want to output all or just selected categories of order transfers,
  • The period of time the Order Data Transfer Report should cover.

The Personnel tab of the PC-Topp.NET Machine Terminal has been equipped with the password-protected possibility to sign in as an engineer (provided the user is marked as engineer in the Personnel Numbers page).

With this new functionality, an engineer can leave comments on the problems he has attended to that will be displayed in the shift report. Besides he can make sure that the time spent fixing a problem will be registered as such.

The dialog for entering comments on articles available in the General Tab of the Machine Terminal has been enhanced to allow entering more than just article comments. It now offers the following options:

• Article Comment
  As before, comments are saved for the article in question and will be displayed at each run of this article.
• New: Production Comment
  Comments are saved in the statistics for this order and will be displayed in the shift report.
• New: Internal Complaints
  Internal complaint comments are saved in the statistics along with their complaint cause and will be displayed in the Internal Complaints report. (This comment type only is available if there is at least one internal complaint defined in the Downtime Causes page.)

The Article Performance Report which used to be available only for the conversion machines has now been released for the corrugator(s), too.

As its conversion machine counterpart, the report lists orders by article. It shows information on produced vs. waste quantity, production time, speed, and trim for the individual orders as well as the totals of the article they belong to. (Partial runs are greyed out.)

As of now PC-Topp lets you define default reasons for downtimes and waste. This feature prevents unaccounted-for downtimes and waste in the statistics. (You have to use the Detailed Waste functionality for this feature to be available for waste.)

In the Waste Reasons page and the Downtime Causes page there is a new option to mark the default reason in the detailed view of each waste reason resp. downtime cause. If this is checked the default reason is marked with an asterisk in the overview. Setting a default reason has the following effects:

• Default Waste Reason
  If Detailed Waste Entry is enabled and a default waste reason is defined PC-Topp automatically assigns this default waste reason for waste quantities below a certain customizable limit.
• Default Downtime Cause
  All downtimes the user doesn’t specify a cause for are automatically assigned the default downtime cause.

PC-Topp.NET offers several new tools for measuring efficiency in production based on the concept of Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE). OEE is commonly used as a key performance indicator in industrial manufacturing processes. 

Overall Equipment Efficiency

OEE essentially is the ratio of actual productive time to planned production time.
It is calculated as the product of

•  Availability
  Takes into account downtime loss. Calculated as the ratio of run hours to work hours.
• Performance
  Takes into account speed loss. Calculated as the ratio of actual run speed to target speed.
• Quality
  Takes into account quality loss. Calculated as the ratio of good produced quantity to total produced quantity. 

The OEE indicator offers an excellent way to monitor and improve the efficiency of your manufacturing process. (For more details on OEE please see http://www.oee.com) 

PC-Topp.NET Overall Equipment Efficiency Reports

There are two new reports available in the PC-Topp.NET Statistics which let you quickly assess the productivity of your corrugator and your conversion machines respectively.

They offer production and performance figures for each day, week or month of the selected period, plus totals, and an OEE evaluation.

Additionally, the Overall Efficiency Report for the conversion machines contains charts that let you evaluate each of the individual OEE factors and the overall OEE at a glance.

OEE Indicators in the Small Plant Overview 

The small Plant overview in the My PC-Topp area on the main menu page now includes a new view (no. 6) providing quick access to the OEE values of the current shift for all your machines.

The Plant Performance Report gives a comprehensive overview of production key figures for all machines including the corrugator(s) within a selectable period. As of now the Plant Performance page generates the report as a PDF file embedded in the page. This makes the report easier to use outside of PC-Topp (e.g. for print-out or emailing).

A new PC-Topp report is now available which lets you assess at a glance the quantity of finished goods and waste per order within a given period of time.

The report lists all orders produced within the selected date range and shows

• the number of ordered and scheduled products per order,
• the number of produced sheets vs. good sheets on the corrugator,
• the number of good products per order and machine along with the percentage of waste occurred on this machine,
• the total quantity and waste percentage for each order covering all machines it ran on,
• the totals for the selected time span.

The report allows you to quickly scan all orders produced and pinpoint orders with excessive waste, and then to analyze on what machine the waste occurred.

Board Grade and Trim Statistics

The Crystal report “Board Grade and Trim Statistics” lists production data on board grades by flute type. It shows production totals as well trim and average roll size within the selected date range for each grade, flute type, and roll size.

Separate summaries by flute type and roll size are additionally illustrated by pie charts.

The new report doesn’t show upgrade cost, like the classical report does. For analyzing upgrades, a new report will be available allowing more detailed analysis.

Corrugator Production by Day

This report shows production totals separate by shift for each day in the month (or other selected periods).

Corrugator Speed by Flute Type

The reports starts with a graphical view of day by day production speed for each flute type for a month, following by the underlying figures for each day.

Paper Requirements by Roll Size and Week

The new Crystal report “Paper Requirements by Roll Size and Week” substitutes the classical report “Paper Requirements by Weeks”. It calculates the amount of paper required to produce all orders remaining to be scheduled on the corrugator.

The Crystal paper requirements report offers more reliable forecasts because it takes into account paper consumption data of the past: The distribution of the required amount of a particular paper over the different roll sizes is now based on the data of the same week in the previous year, in order to correctly reflect seasonal influences. (If there is no data available for that week in the previous year, then the last three months are taken as calculation base.)

Paper Consumption by Roll Size

The second new Crystal report "Paper Consumption by Rollsize" takes the place of the classical "Paper Consumption List".

Like the classical report it lists the consumption figures during a selectable period of the past for all papers, as well as their distribution over the available roll sizes. What is new is the nicer and clearer layout plus the fact that, like all Crystal reports, the report can easily be emailed as it is provided as a PDF.

PC-Topp.NET now offers a growing number of reports in a new style, as Crystal reports. They take the place of existing classical reports, or offer new information, both in a modern and fresh design.

The new reports can be identified by a PDF icon in PC-Topp.NET. Clicking on such a link generates an Adobe Acrobat PDF document that appears on the screen almost instantly, no more long waits required. You can already find them in several PC Topp.NET pages, their cover settings, production reports and schedule printouts.

Many reports are not really needed on paper; the PDF format allows easy on-screen viewing, or to save the report to a file that can easily be emailed. If a printed report is required, the PDF can be sent to any local or network printer. Many reports can also be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets, for further analysis or external use of the data.

Great care has been taken to make the new reports compatible to the existing classical reports: They will contain the same data, and deliver identical results. Many reports will contain additional information compared to their ancestors, and all are presented in color, well structured and easy to read. Footnotes appear on many reports explaining values that are not instantly understood.

The scope of available reports will steadily grow in the near future. They will open up further valuable new sources of information for planning, production and management.